“When I’m making an image, I always have three priorities: first comes beauty, then innovation and in third place comes realism. If I have to sacrifice realism for the sake of the first two, I will and frequently do. But generally I try to obtain some kind of balance.”

In this session of the 3D Art Direct podcast, we interview Regina LaGrone also known as Lady Littlefox.

She’s an experienced 3D content developer for Poser and Daz Studio. Her strengths are in character and costume designs including contemporary, fantasy and cartoon styles. She is skilled in all stages of content development and has modelled in Modo, Lightwave, XSI and ZBrush. She is at present a freelance developer and beta tester for Smith Micro software and has successfully run her own business of Lady LittleFox Studios for at least 16 years.

Anime characters have a strong following, so producing a popular DAZ Studio/Poser character that has created a whole mini market of content to go with the figure is no mean feat! Littlefox goes though the design aspects of her anime character and what inspired her along the way.

In this Session

– The origins of Littlefox Designs, how it started some of the earliest design highlights.

– Beta testing for over 8 years at Smith Micro for Poser and Anime Studio. Have you been able to initiate some good changes or fixes during this time?

– One of your earlier experiences in work was being a 3D Avatar specialist – what did this involve?… Read the rest

“Carrara has great tools for lighting and plenty of options, for anyone just starting I’d say just to keep it simple, throw some shapes into a scene along with your lighting and then just play with these light sources and their options and study the way the lights and shadows react with the objects”

This is session 32 of the 3D Art Direct podcast talking with Stefan Kraus on WorldCreator, a professional terrain generator including sophisticated erosion and sediment algorithms.

I would like to introduce Stefan Kraus, owner of Bite the Bytes started in 2007, a company based in Fulda, Germany that offers three tools for digital artists – “Terrain SDK”, “Shader Tool” and “World Creator” – formerly known as GeoControl and it is “World Creator” that we are going to focus on with this interview with Stefan.

In this session we learn:-

– How long has WorldCreator been around – when was it first created and by whom? What inspired the original author to bring this software to life?

– Some terrain generators can have appear to have a steep looking learning curve with a node based user interface to cope with. Is WorldCreator different and easier to use in this respect?

– WorldCreator uses Isolines to build landscapes. What is an Isoline and what advantages do they have in controlling the form of the landscape?

– “controlled rivers” and the tools to create various water bodies.

– WorldCreator has the ability to have landscapes eroded or even have “reverse erosion”

– The simulation of sediments in WorldCreator is unique to terrain generators.… Read the rest

In this session of the 3D Art Direct podcast, we interview Paolo Ciccone on the new Reality 4 software givingphoto realistic rendering in Poser or DAZ Studio.

In this session we learn from Paolo:-

The history of the LuxRender engine, which Reality 4 uses.

What‘s all the fuss about physically based rendering (PBR)and what are the advantages to the artist?

Is PBR still advancing and what might we see next with this?

What are some of the changes that have made Reality 4 easier to use for the artist?

All about the presets library and some of the goodies inside it.

What lies ahead for Pret-a-3D in 2015?

In association with this podcast, we are having a live webinar on a New Features Masterclass for Reality 4 on Saturday 31st of January presented by Paolo. You can Register HERE and you’ll have the chance to win a copy of Reality 4 during the session.

I am very pleased to introduce Oshyan Greene, the business manager of Planetside Software, which produces the highly regarded Terragen 3, a powerful solution for rendering and animating realistic natural environments. In this session we’re going to discuss the features of a new update for Terragen 3.

Image by Frank Basinski

In this session we learn

– Highlights for Planetside and Terragen 3 during 2014

– All about new glass shader.

– Stereo camera handling and support of the Oculus Rift.

(The Rift is an upcoming virtual reality head-mounted display, being developed by Oculus VR)

– A fisheye lens can now be applied in Terragen 3.2, we discuss uses for the fisheye in Terragen.

– More control over cloud shapes can be applied in 3.2 with the “Taper top and base” parameter.

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72 pages of vivid inspiration

This special issue of 3D Art Direct has a focus on real time 3D graphics in gaming.

PETER JOHANSSON

3d Art Direct interviews the Art Director at Expansive Worlds about his work on directing the game The Hunter.

AVALANCHE ENGINE

“If my math is correct, our current hunting reserves combined would cover an area of a little over 43 square miles in real life. The world map as a whole is 1024 (32 by 32) square kilometres, or 636 square miles. In theory we could have only one hunting reserve without any borders, covering all that map space, rather than several smaller ones. But of course there are many practical and technical reasons why we choose to break the world up into smaller pieces.”

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“I’d always loved the quality of lighting, and the clarity of the final rendered output from Mandelbulber, and going from that to Mandelbulb 3D’s completely different final rendering method took some getting used to.But, as I played with the program more and more, I began to get a sense of the much larger range of creative options — particularly via the formulas — available within the program, and it wasn’t long until I was using it exclusively”

JAN VAN DE KLOOSTER

3d Art Direct talks to the Swiss 3D artist Jan Van de Klooster about his Vue based sci-fi landscapes.

VUE | BLENDER | 3DCOAT

“When I model, I might start with a simple thing like a wheel, and from there it grows into a landing gear and then I move on to attach a spaceship to it.”

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It’s our new look for the 3D Art Direct magazine.

With a cleaner, fresher look and a tighter consistency in the design throughout, we still wish to maintain the focus on what we do best. It’s all about sharing the stories of creativity through our in-depth interviews with some amazing artists and content creators, straight from the genres of science fiction and fantasy art.

As you read these narratives, we very much hope that you gain inspiration from the passion and hard won battles that you’ll learn from these interviews, and most of all we hope that muse leads to action in creating your own amazing artwork.